


Nights Of Stitching

by GrowingTheEmpire



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Friends to Lovers, In honor of Valentines Day I'm coming off of hiatus, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-20 00:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5985516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrowingTheEmpire/pseuds/GrowingTheEmpire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Haven't posted in awhile due to a lot of reasons. I am not leaving this account though and I still love all of you <3 Enjoy this. Happy Valentine's Day!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Nights Of Stitching

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't posted in awhile due to a lot of reasons. I am not leaving this account though and I still love all of you <3 Enjoy this. Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Patrick’s gotten used to this sort of thing. “You are going to wind up dead, Pete.” He resigned. Patrick pulled the surgical thread through the eye of the needle, and tied it off quickly. 

Pete sat slumped in Patrick’s lap, eyes slightly dampening Patrick’s shirt. “It’s hurts, ‘Trick,” He said, referring to the cut on his ribs. It was as long as Patrick’s forefinger, and looked as deep as a blood red penny. Patrick has seen worse, of course. The cut bled like a motherfucker, blood spilling scarlet over Pete’s side and stomach. The richness of the color made Patrick’s stomach churn, and a small part of Patrick’s mind raced with concerns.  _ That looks awful deep, Patrick. Screw your promises, take that boy to the hospital. It could get infected! A blood infection! Gnarly stuff, man. That could kill him. And it would be all your fault.  _ Still, Patrick’s exterior remained cool, calm and collected. “I just,” Pete said, a dead end sentence that wouldn’t tell anybody but Patrick anything.

“I know, I know.” Patrick comforted. Pete sobbed in Patrick’s lap, pressing his wet cheeks into Patrick.

“You know what the worst part is?” Pete bit. “The worst part is knowing that it will never be enough. It will never satisfy me.” He said it definitely. “I know how I will go, I just don’t know when. Could have been today, could be tomorrow.”

Patrick’s soft fingers on Pete’s neck turned hard. “Stop talking like that. I will always be here.”

Pete’s expression turned into a sour smile. “I  _ am  _ going to wind up dead. I know that I will never make it to thirty.” Patrick looked away, every word coming out of Pete’s mouth knocking his heart out of the proper spot. Ripping it down, down.

Patrick pulled away from Pete, standing up on the apartment floor.  Pete’s apartment was scarce and sad. Patrick used to live here once upon a time, with the others. It was full of boys, Pete’s ever growing group of cronies. Friends would always come and go, bring and take stuff with them. It used to piss Patrick off so much, to one day buy your own cereal and then wake up to Pete and Brendon and Travie and god knows who else, sitting around the broken breakfast table passing around the box and eating till there was none left. Patrick would kill to go back to the days.

Before Pete could react, Patrick grabbed his hand and yanked. Pete struggled to get up, and Patrick wrapped his arms around him, guiding him. They walked together to Pete’s bedroom, where Patrick and him wrapped their arms and legs together.  _ If only he didn’t need this, Patrick? If only he was tearing himself over you? Tearing himself over somebody that could fix him again? No. It’s about some slut Travie or Ryan introduced to him. If only the one he pines about actually cares about him. Cares about him so fucking much. _

Pete pushed his head into the curve of Patrick's shoulder. “Thank you.” He said quietly.

 

*  *  *

Patrick can’t remember when everything stopped being all good and lighthearted. Maybe it never was. But he does remember when he stopped wanting Pete as a friend and when he started wanting Pete as a lover. As more.

Her name was Ashley or Amber or Allison. It was Pete’s longest girlfriend he had ever had. She was a big deal. Such a big deal that Pete asked Patrick to come help him buy a ring. Pete asked him with a huge smile on his face, “ ‘Trick, I really think she is the one. I know it in my heart.” Pete grasped Patrick’s hand. “Help me buy a ring?” They picked out a gaudy one, the diamond in the shape of a heart, with tiny cubic zirconia surrounding it. It was held in a little red velvet box. As Pete was holding the tiny box in his hand, Patrick knew. He knew that he couldn’t let Pete do this, because  _ oh, there is a pang in your heart.  _ He suddenly wished for everything that Amber, or Allison, or Ashley, had.

So he did everything a perfectly sane boy would do, if he suddenly realised he had feelings for his straight, and soon-to-be-engaged best friend. He moved out. He didn’t answer phone calls. He withdrew.

Till one day, Pete showed up at his door with a dented diamond ring, and a small incision in need of stitching along his hand.

It did not make anything easier because, as Pete falls deeper and deeper into his sickness, Patrick falls deeper in love with him. After a night of stitching, Pete and him are always together. For the next week or so, the are bound at the hip, never leaving each other’s sides. Patrick moves back in, sleeps in Pete’s bed. Makes breakfast in the morning. Checks on the wound. Maybe gets Pete back into therapy. He always gets close to telling him. But how could he?  _ Pete, I know you are extremely dependent right now, and don’t need this at all, but I’ve always been hopelessly in love with you. Pass the salt?  _

Then the cycle falls back into place. Pete distances himself, falls for another girl, this time with red hair. Or blue. Or blonde.  _ She’s completely different, I swear. Maybe I need to find that red box- you know? The one we picked out? I’m getting better. I promise. _

Patrick’s part to blame. He always believe him. Nothing ever seems fishy. That’s the thing with Pete. If he believes something- you always do too. Something about his too big smile, or the way he is so genuine. It just is. Till it isn’t.

Patrick moves out again. Pete is good for a month. Four months. Almost to the one year anniversary. Back to the stitches. Patrick’s gotten used to this sort of thing.

When he woke up this morning, Patrick wanted so bad, just to wake Pete up, and tell him. Tell him that he will never leave. That Pete never needed to be stitched up again. That the only thing that should be permanently on his skin should be a ring, not a scar. But he didn’t. Instead, he plucked Pete’s warm fingers off his damp skin and went to take a shower.

He dried himself off with a cold towel and wrapped it around himself. He walked into the room to find Pete still asleep. In the night, Pete kicked off all the blankets. He laid there, exposed. Patrick felt wrong for looking at him. Still, he didn’t look away. “Creeper.” A voice grumbled from the bed. Patrick’s pale cheeks instantly reddened. “Do you always bring boys into your bedroom to watch them while they sleep innocently?” Pete asked, sitting up. He looked better than last night, but not by much. The dark circles that were forming under his eyes looked like bruises.  

“This is your bedroom, loser. Get dressed- we are going to go eat something.” Patrick said. He pulled out a shirt from an open dresser drawer, and he realised something. “Hey? Is this my shirt?”

A small smiled formed on Pete’s lips. “Yeah. There is probably a couple more in that drawer.” He stopped. “They make me feel safe.”

“Well, put it on then.” Patrick said quickly, avoiding Pete’s eyes.  _ He doesn’t have a right to say stuff like that to you.  _ “Are we feeling pancakes, or waffles?”

Pete pulled on Patrick’s shirt and got out of bed. He ran a hand through his messy hair, and smiled up at Patrick. “Do we have to go out?”

“Do you have any food in this wasteland of an apartment?” Patrick asked. He held open the door for the other man as they walked together into his kitchen.

“I honestly don’t know.” Pete shrugged. He opened the fridge to examine. It contained exactly two cartons of old Chinese leftovers, a jar of raspberry jelly, four cans of beer and packet of baby carrots.  

“I don’t think even Paula Deen could make anything out of this trash. We have to go out.” Patrick reaffirmed. Pete slumped against his shoulder and let out a whine.

“Then I have to go see people and order and I don’t want to do that. I want to do anything but that.” Pete’s fingers dug themselves in Patrick’s shirt.

“It’ll be fine.” Patrick soothed. “Would I ever make you do anything I thought would hurt you?”

Pete remained silent. Patrick rubbed his shoulder lightly, waiting for a response that never came. 

“Would I?” He prodded. “Have I?”

“After this is all over.” Pete said. “After I get better, please don’t leave me alone. Don’t move out.” Patrick felt Pete’s lips on his necks, lightly touching as the words came out. “Because I need you more than you think. For longer than you think.”

Patrick pulled out of the embrace, and looked at Pete. His childhood friend turned adulthood crush. The only man he ever loved. He looked into Pete’s light brown eyes, like an amber stone was set into a sad human being. Pete’s eyes were searching too. He continued. “Patrick, I know I go off with the wrong girls and I do things that I shouldn’t and-” He sighed. “I know that I love you. And you can’t leave me alone again.”

_ This is all you needed.  _ Patrick pulled Pete into his arms and kissed him like Pete was the only thing in the world that mattered. Because he was. “I am never going anywhere ever again.” Patrick felt his heart cram itself into his throat. “I only left because I thought that what you wanted me to do.” Pete shook his head.

The kitchen felt empty at that moment. Pete cleared his throat. “Patrick. Ever since I met you, I knew I wanted you. I have always wanted you. I will always want you.”

Patrick cradled the man’s face in his hands. The same face that he has slapped, the same face he has treated for bruises and the face he has spent every night dreaming about kissing. He ran his thumbs over Pete’s cheek, and smiled.

 

*

The first night of stitching started with a phone call. Patrick picked up and he heard a breathy voice on the other line. 

“Patrick, there is so much blood.” A tiny voice said on the other line- choking. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything Patrick.” Patrick felt his heart go still. He imagined thousands of possible scenes in those three seconds. He forced himself to get up off the couch and function.

“Where are you?” He asked, the words coming out focused, when on the inside- he was anything but.

“I’m home. The door is open.” Pete said. The line went dead and Patrick hopped in his car.  

He headed into Pete’s cramped bathroom to find Pete leaning against the tub with his eyes peacefully shut, but heavy, shaky wet breaths forcing themselves in and out of his lungs. His fingers were bloody and vibrating, tapping maniacally against the tub. “Where is it?” Patrick asked. Pete pulled up his shirt, to reveal a horizontal line across his side. It was deep. 

“Jesus, Pete. What the fuck?” Patrick huffed. The sight was heartbreaking. As Pete remained silent, Patrick flung open the cabinet drawers to reveal an unopened med kit, the kind hikers bring on trips. Pete was far from a hiker. “Bingo.” He whispered through gritted teeth. He swung his body towards Pete. “What did you use?”

Slow and graceful- Pete pointed to a shattered bloody champagne glass. “She threw it at me.”

Inside the med kit was surgical thread. And an already sterilized needle. Patrick figured it out.

* 

Reheated Chinese. Breakfast of the champions. Patrick wouldn’t want to spend it with anybody else.

THE END.


End file.
